Outcome of episiotomy repair among women in a tertiary health care institution in Nigeria

Background: Even though restrictive use of episiotomy has been advocated, its use cannot be completely eliminated, so efforts should be made to manage the procedure adequately to prevent adverse effects on the mothers.Objectives: This study set out to establish the sociodemographic characteristics and post-repair complaints of women who had episiotomy performed on them during their delivery in the centre studied. The complaint profile of women whose episiotomies were repaired by House officers were compared with those repaired by Seniors.Results: The incidence of episiotomy in the centre during the study period was 34.5%. The modal (40.7%) age-group among parturients in the study population was 26-30 years with the majority being primiparous women. A vast majority (89.5%) of the parturients were married and 66.9% had attained post-secondary level of education. Most (94.5%) of the parturients had booked and obtained antenatal care in the centre. The majority (55.7%) of the episiotomies were repaired by House officers, while Consultants were involved in only 1.8% of cases. There was no statistically significant difference in the post-episiotomy complaints of the women whose episiotomies were repaired by House officers and those repaired by Seniors.(p< 0.5)Conclusion: The outcome of repair of episiotomy by House officers and Seniors in the centre studied were comparable. Episiotomy can be classified as a House officers' procedure but they would have been appropriately trained on the technique of repair.Key words: Episiotomy, sociodemographics, women, repair outcome, medical personne